


Gladly Beyond

by EarthsickWithoutYou



Series: What If [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Lovers, Episode: s03e06 Dolce, Fix-It, M/M, Smut, Stream of Consciousness, Will Graham in pleasured pain, scar kink, wound licking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:41:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25710784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthsickWithoutYou/pseuds/EarthsickWithoutYou
Summary: Takes place during the episode "Dolce," after Will is shot by Chiyoh.  As Hannibal tends to Will's bullet wound, Will's feelings come to the surface and force Hannibal to confront his own.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: What If [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1866316
Comments: 20
Kudos: 262





	Gladly Beyond

**Author's Note:**

> cw: you could consider the beginning of this to be slightly dub-con due to Will being in so much pain. However, everything that happens physically is what Will wants.

With his body weak and heavy while his heart beat out of control, Will allowed Hannibal to half-drag him someplace --

Where were they, an apartment building, maybe? Yes -- dark kaleidoscope of black and purple blotches, splattered with gold -- Hannibal’s strong arms holding him barely upright, unceremonious, no attempt at tenderness this time -- 

“This time you mean _business_ ,” Will blurted strangely, half-drunk on pain that seared through his shoulder and left his consciousness a dwindling, dubious pinprick of light, a fine match for his common sense.

 _Take that, too_ , Will wanted to say, _You’ve taken everything else, ruined me, just have what’s left of me._ Why shouldn’t Will allow himself a little pleasure now, at the end, a final indictment, punishment and reward all rolled into one sweet outburst of lusty violence? He was probably going to be eaten today, which was hilarious. He laughed, causing Hannibal to cast him a frown as he lowered Will to sit on the floor. His hand stroked softly over Hannibal’s back and shoulders of its own volition, feeling the power and anticipating with mingled agony and ecstasy the pain his enemy would yet bestow.

Hannibal arranged Will with his back supported against something sturdy -- maybe a couch?

Will tilted his heavy head slightly to check behind him. Yes, a couch. Hannibal wasn’t going to take him to a bed, after all, that would be too intimate. Too tempting. So much for a means of influence other than violence, but he was equally guilty of finding it safer to stab than talk things out. That really...wasn’t too smart. Public, famous courtyard in plain view of dozens of passers-by, Hannibal beside him, both of them limping, broken halves of the same sculpture, parts of a machine that couldn’t work without each other. 

After their dazzling sparks at the Uffizi, Hannibal’s only drawn conclusion was to throw the precious new chance away and go back to trying to kill each other. What would have happened if Will had not been so impatient and frustrated once again by Hannibal’s refusal to let him in? Now he would never know.

It was a fair bet he still would have ended up here, under Hannibal, limply collapsed and vulnerable to whatever his nemesis chose to put him through. As if he hadn’t already been through enough, endured enough out of his sick addiction to their bond, his inability to look into those mysterious, dizzying cinnamon eyes and simply say _No_.

Hannibal said nothing, which was uncharacteristic enough to snag Will’s wandering, listless attention as it threatened to spiral back into the past. Silently, he unbuttoned Will’s shirt, then ripped it back over his shoulders harshly, causing a sharp spasm of pain to shoot through Will, starting from the gushing bullet wound in his shoulder and resonating through his bones and pores and the horrific headache that felt like the physical manifestation of the same silent scream Hannibal always inspired in him.

Will let out a ragged sound like a wounded animal, but there was something in it of a moan, too, and his body surged forward then, seeking comfort. It didn’t matter anymore if he sought solace in the darkest, most inappropriate place, not when he was going to die so soon. So he slumped against Hannibal, drinking in his body heat as if it could ease the icy shivers of his own form, and he took a deep inhale of spicy, manly cologne as if he was enjoying a drug, something to end his ceaseless withdrawal symptoms. 

Hesitantly, Hannibal hugged him, his body stiff and unyielding against Will’s surrender to embarrassing, obvious sentimentality and shameless desire. 

“ _Hann_ ibal,” Will murmured, nuzzling into the doctor’s neck as he continued to be racked by shivers of miserable pain. A beautiful supplement to the feeling of the hard metal encased within his skin, sending blood cascading down his arm in a hot trickle against cold, goose-bumped flesh, and his whole upper body was naked against Hannibal’s warm, wonderful-smelling presence, and he probably said his name a few more times, but he couldn’t be sure. 

“Just kiss me,” he slurred against the skin of Hannibal’s neck, reaching up to clumsily brush his fingers over the scabs dotting his untouchable face, his dignified cheekbones...then there was the soft fringe of hair falling over his brow. Hmm, so nice. He wanted to go on touching like this, right up till the end. Would Hannibal let him? 

A long pause, and Hannibal staying absolutely stock still, in shock. Then that sexy fucking evil voice murmuring low, “Another of your tricks, Will?”

“You’re going to kill me,” he stated as a point of fact.

Hannibal drew him back slightly, a hand behind his back to hold him up, the other on his face, examining it, looking for more lies. 

“If I’m going to die, I’d like you to kiss me first.” Will would have shrugged but his shoulders felt somewhat dead already. He would have elaborated further, but the pain lancing through his body made him shudder and lose the threads connecting details. 

And his only answer was more silence. Hannibal still didn’t understand, God! Why did he _never_ understand? It was tantamount to willful refusal at this point. Will drew on whatever remaining strength he could use to form more words.

“Please, let’s just be two people in love, this once, the last time we can...last chance we’re ever gonna get…” Will ran out of breath and let out another low moan of pain.

Hannibal leaned him against the couch again, and Will figured that was it; he closed his eyes to await his demise, distantly curious if Hannibal would prolong the suffering, feed on his torment with sadistic flair as was his usual habit, or if Will had earned special treatment, a faster, more merciful end, without the theatre or selfish gloating on Hannibal’s part.

Instead of his own knife back inside his gut to finish the job, Will found to his surprise that he _was_ kissed, that Hannibal’s lush, soft lips fell onto his like rain, gentle and tentative at first, even fearful. Will had lost the capacity to lift his hands to touch; somewhere along the line they’d gone heavy with pins and needles, but he could move his mouth against Hannibal’s, steady and slow. He licked the seam of his enemy’s lips, tasting the light essence of cool white wine and apples that lingered, and he decided he could die happy now. Nothing else mattered.

Hannibal took Will’s face in both hands and kissed him deeper, moaning softly, as if he was the one in pain, and perhaps he was, in his own way. 

“Again,” Will sighed, and Hannibal lapped into his mouth as if savoring some inconceivably luscious delicacy, his warm, wet tongue sliding in harmonious indecency with Will’s, hungry and greedy. 

The excruciating pain in his shoulder and the pulsing of hot blood from his wound began to meld inextricably with the pleasure Hannibal gave him, and suddenly it was everything, like the knife slicing a smile in his stomach in Hannibal’s kitchen. He had it back again, their intimacy, and could have wept with joy. He never got to keep Hannibal, there was no way in past his walls which Will had not squandered in foolish indecision over right and wrong and all the things that _weren’t_ about being with Hannibal and therefore _didn’t_ make sense or carry the least meaning anymore.

This was lurid, red, sweet pain and joy, blurred all around the edges. Will’s shoulder throbbed but so did his cock, inconceivably alert and filling with every brilliant, wonderful sweep of Hannibal’s tongue against his own. He wanted to chase the sensations further, but Hannibal teased him, even as he skittered close to the edge of unconsciousness and probably death itself, the killer honored his beauty enough not to squander it in hasty pillaging. 

Instead, Hannibal followed other inspirations, kissing each of Will’s lips individually before biting the lower one too hard -- sharp jolt of agony duetting with his bullet wound in a delirium of pleasure-pain, pounding, pulsing through his head, into his bloodstream and gathering in a swarm of butterflies in his belly, traveling lower.

Hannibal was just as obscene as he had been in Will’s darkest fantasies, laying siege to Will’s bloody lip with fervent licking that made Will think, no longer repulsed but goddamn elated, _cannibal_. He felt incalculably proud, excessively pleased he finally had proof that he could make Hannibal wild with ravenous craving. He didn’t know if it was sexual for Hannibal, like it was for him, or if it was merely a savage shade of hunger and bloodlust, but it wasn’t going to matter much longer. He was fading; the world was fluttering in and out of focus. 

The killer breathed Will’s name against his neck and then kissed and licked him there, making his way down to Will’s injured shoulder as if they had plenty of time for him to be malevolently playful. He snarled as Will gave a half-aware whimper at the teeth and tongue currently nibbling and biting harder at his neck then his shoulder, finding the small but deep indentation of blood with the metal close beneath, the bullet hugged in Will’s squeezing skin. 

Trembling so hard he could barely summon breath, Will endured more of what it was to love Hannibal. He felt the tension in his groin hitching higher, tingling up and down his engorged sex as Hannibal licked the wound. Will threw his head back and Hannibal growled, one hand buried in Will’s curls, holding his head to one side so he’d be steadier, in a more controlled position for the killer to do as he liked. 

And what he liked was to lick in a slow circle with the tip of his tongue, around and around the wound, simulating fellatio so obviously that Will’s cock gave another impatient twitch in his pants. He couldn’t beg for friction or release; his tongue had forgotten how to move to form words; the world was a camera frame shuddering and relaxing around the sensation of Hannibal tonguing the hole in his flesh. 

Hannibal kissed the wound in a momentary, apparently unavoidable twinge of affection, and then he did the worst thing yet, which was to poke the tip of his tongue carefully _inside_ Will’s wound, passing the boundary of outer skin to breach his inner agony,

And Will screamed,

Hannibal’s free hand was snaking across his abdomen, finding the smiling scar and stroking it in time with the swirls of his tongue over and over and inside Will’s pain-searing skin, _claiming_ and hurting and taking.

The pain was extreme and harrowing beyond what he could have imagined, and he climaxed just as suddenly in a sharply fierce explosion of erotic bliss, creaming his underwear, and the last things he had to cherish before the universe went black and numb were Hannibal’s voice shuddering, “Oh, my dear,” startled, Hannibal’s blood-covered lips smiling at him in amazement, his hand still stroking over the scar on Will’s stomach -- fresh trickles of blood wandering down Will’s arm in the wake of his wound being further worried -- warm stickiness on and around his cock -- and the word “love” batting around his brain looking for similar release at last, resting heavy on his unmovable tongue.

***

When Will stirred to consciousness again, it _was_ in a bed this time, Hannibal’s, he guessed, since the killer loomed over him again. Hannibal had divested himself of his shirt, revealing skin nearly as mottled, scar-caked and battle-marred as Will’s own. He was like the vision of the wendigo, dangerous and on the hunt, but he was human now too, flesh and blood and longing writ just as large across his face.

Dazed, Will glanced to his still-throbbing shoulder and found it had been neatly, cleanly bandaged, although he could hardly think it had been done in apology for Hannibal’s insane plundering of it with his mouth. No, this was simply done to avoid infection; Hannibal was sensible even at his maddest. The bullet was gone. Underneath the bandage, he could feel a fresh stinging sensation like little needle-pokes and he knew without having to look that he had been expertly stitched. 

“You’re alright, Will,” smiled Hannibal, resting on his elbows and gazing into Will’s face. 

He remembered the last time Hannibal had looked at him like that. It was the evening Will had found him sketching Patroclus and Achilles. He’d stood by Hannibal’s elbow and looked down at him with barely restrained longing. And in the fire-glow, Hannibal’s features looked unusually soft and worshipful, his eyes warm honey, but now those eyes were nearly black, dilating with ferocious, outrageous desire. 

What animal had Will set free? What animal was Will?

For now he lay there breathing and hurting, perplexed by every distorted memory which he knew to be true. Even his own doubts over Hannibal’s feelings had been storm doors now ripped right off their hinges. 

“You’re alright,” Hannibal repeated, pressing a feathery kiss to his lips, savoring the bottom lip especially with its small layer of bumpy red scabs. “And you’re mine.”

“Hurts,” Will answered, amazed at how one word could explain absolutely everything about this.

“I know it does. But it’s clean and it will heal nicely.” Hannibal stroked his hair, winding his fingers through sweaty curls as Will relaxed into his touch.

How he had fought dragons and scaled castle walls and screamed in vain through thorny midnight forest thickets for Hannibal to let him _in_. After all the misery his efforts had rewarded him with, was this all it took, a simple request for a kiss?

“I can administer pain killers, but they would remove your ability to consent, and I'll not have you without being certain it is what you wish,” Hannibal muttered, skimming Will’s collarbone with his teeth. 

Sudden sweet, hot need twisted in Will’s stomach, and his eyes were wide and bright on Hannibal in the shadowy room. 

“They will numb your physical responsiveness,” Hannibal elaborated, thumbing over Will’s nipple as if to accentuate the point. Like a musical note drawn effortlessly when a bow drags across a violin, Will’s hips arched to Hannibal’s commanding touch.

“Would you like me to administer pain killers, so that you can sleep off the remainder of this ordeal in peace?” Hannibal circled his nipple slowly with his thumb, bringing back an intense memory of his tongue traipsing around and delving inside Will, making him come -- and Will bit his lip, barely smothering a moan.

Hannibal smiled, “We could talk about anything you like once you wake, and as you begin to recover more fully. I won’t hurt you again unless it’s to give pleasure to us both.”

“Why?” Will asked, brow furrowed even as his skin sang out for more of Hannibal’s demanding touch. “I’ve been trying to get through to you for so long, and now you suddenly want…” 

To finish the sentence, to follow this labyrinthian saga of broken friendship, abuse, disappointment, halted becoming and the never-ending _ache_ of it all would hurt more than any knife or bullet ever could.

“Because I was never sure you wanted me.” Hannibal traced the curve of Will’s face, the softness of his cheek scattered with scratches. “As I want you, beloved, as I always want you. To the exclusion of all else. And in my uncertainty of your feelings, I never could have anticipated how your desire would make me feel.”

“You never let me,” Will nearly choked on a sob, glaring at Hannibal, shivering under his wandering fingers, coasting down his neck, gracefully sweeping across his chest. 

“I’m sorry,” Hannibal swallowed hard, tears fogging his dark eyes. “I’ve tried everything else but giving in. I’ve torn both of us to pieces and left you to clean up the mess. I couldn’t believe my eyes when you came to me in our chapel. You, my beautifully forgiving angel. I’m letting you now.”

He placed Will’s hand on his heart, and as Will’s fingers pressed there, tangling in soft chest hair and dampening with the light sheen of sweat on Hannibal’s skin, he realized how his feeling had some back -- in his fingers, pressed over the lightening-fast, bullet-hard thud of Hannibal’s heartbeat, in his whole body, aching again in his heart and soul. Aching for Hannibal, who had ripped him to shreds and destroyed his peace and taken every good thing away from him, convulsing, irresistible, gut-churning _need_ for his worst, most bitter enemy.

“I’m loving you now,” Hannibal added with a halting breath. “Do you love me, Will?”

Will’s eyes were steady midnight blue on Hannibal in the dim. His thighs, softly covered by a pair of Hannibal’s lounge pants, came up to frame his enemy’s hips; his fingertips traveled over Hannibal’s back, smooth muscle and the long, delicate line of spine.

There were so many things he could say, spitefully, and they would be true. The endlessly scrolling dirty laundry list of Hannibal’s offenses against him was always there in his mind, on the tip of his tongue, ready to be unfurled so that his nemesis could be called to the stage of justice to explain himself.

_Why did you lie and say you were my friend, my protector, my paddle?  
\--Don’t you know how much I needed you?  
Why did you frame me and let me go to prison for your crimes?  
\--Don’t you know how scared I was? And I still needed you--  
Why did you kill our daughter  
\--We were supposed to be a family, and I would not have betrayed you in the end -- I know I waited too long to know this,  
Why do you keep leaving me when all I’ve ever done is reach for you?  
Why do you keep hurting me?_

Every question, blood-crusted with misery, betrayal and wounded pride and a broken heart had the very same answer, _because I love you,_ and so Hannibal had already explained himself without the need for Will’s interrogation.

It was a love that would consume them both, but it had never been particularly tender before, only instructive, giving and taking in ways it was safe to, behind armor made of lies; still it had always been enough for Will to know, deep down, he was truly adored. He was even feared, and that was the reason for the lies and the walls and the leaving.

Hannibal wasn’t going away again; they had everywhere to go together. Will kissed the thumb that traced his lips, and said in a heated whisper, “Yes.”

“Oh, my darling.” Hannibal beamed at him, and his smile should have been twistedly hilarious, completely sincere, marveling and filled with sharp, lovely fangs -- hilarious, after the deception and the torture and both of them writhing away from their love like sickened heathens, but no, it wasn’t funny. 

Will’s heart raced and he felt the fluttering sensation all over again, his sex drive caressing his adrenaline somewhere under a laser cut of pain; he leaned up to kiss Hannibal’s mouth, to suck his lips and tongue, to bite and get his nails under Hannibal’s skin, where he lived, coming home.

Hannibal moaned and rustled against him, a hard line under his trousers rubbing against Will’s thigh, making Will feel too empty, craving fullness and completion. Hooking his ankles behind Hannibal’s back, he ground up against him in return, clutched Hannibal’s face in both hands and kissed harder, delicious, hot, full lips opening to his insistent, insatiable exploration. They needed each other; this could never be enough.

This was their poetry, their _somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond_ , Hannibal smiling, kissing into Will’s neck, making a very clear offer through his posture and kisses that he would kiss Will absolutely everywhere, bring him to the brink of madness with slow, tantalizing attention until he was loose and weak and begging. And Will would happily submit to that on any other day, he knew he would, he would love it, and Hannibal would love reducing him to his bare boned essence of “please-please-please,” and God, they were going to be so good together.

But he had already gone mad, somewhere between the sleeping and the waking, being cleaned and stitched up because he had been a good boy at last and given in, made Hannibal give in. He was impatient, he needed, he would make Hannibal give.

“Want you inside,” he muttered into Hannibal’s ear, shocked by the brittle edge of his own voice.

Hannibal shivered with it and claimed Will’s lips in the most scorching, demanding kiss yet, they were bruising each other, it was beautiful; Hannibal’s elegant countenance had shattered to leave him relentless, and he reached down to bare them, trousers shoved to the floor, the two of them pressed together in Hannibal’s grip, burning up, too dry. Will keened with it; Hannibal slicked them with spit in his palm and the sheen of their pre-cum now mixed all together, they were one.

Stroked, in one solid line of hard, hot flesh, Hannibal owning him body and soul. Scratches, Will’s barely longer than blunt-cut nails managing to score across Hannibal’s shoulders, his teeth aching to follow, sink in and mark as their lips had bruised, as Hannibal hurt him again with the force of this wanting and the too-powerful pleasure of merging. Everything else would be rendered blackened ashes around them, it could all go to hell; they were heaven. 

When Hannibal let go of them it was only to nearly stumble down the bed, drawing Will’s thighs up, and Will caught them, backs of knees wrapped behind elbows to leave himself open. This was new, and he was opened like a shiny new present, adored, to be prized, petted and spoiled -- " _Good boy_ ", Hannibal bit the softness of his ass cheeks and kissed the sore marks he’d left, massaging and sighing wetly right against the tight pucker of Will’s entrance. The breath marked his skin just as boldly, sending electric shivers all through Will, and Hannibal’s mouth followed closer, the way he had licked and sucked the bullet hole, soothing laps and naughty, teasing circling, pushing inside, holding Will’s cheeks apart and licking harder with low groans of appreciation and an unspoken _please_ to what Will had already allowed.

Hannibal’s eyes wild on him now in the near-dark, darting over his face; the killer’s lips wet, the taste of Will gifted back to him on feral kisses, and so Will’s cock jerked harshly for attention. Will knew he could have had Hannibal's wonderful mouth on his cock, too, but he had stipulated for minimal foreplay, and he did not regret. There would be other days and nights to taste every shade of sin together, time stretching on into an unforeseeable horizon, their property, each other until it got one or both of them killed; which didn’t matter now -- nothing would do now, tonight, but to have everything much too quickly, harder than he should, yes,

Finally, Hannibal covering them with lube so that they were even wetter and stickier, the stroking again of their cocks pressed flush in the killer’s knowing hand making Will too anxious to be further and filled, Hannibal’s fingers stretching him as he shot down a look to say _don’t rush me with this, not with this, I won’t hurt and tear you that way, this is for you, everything is for you, I am for you,_

Finally, Hannibal pushing inside Will’s still too-tightness, Hannibal’s breath stuttering, hands clutched into the sheets, forehead against Will’s, their joining ripping away the last remaining armor of his skin, they were bone to bone and heart to heart, Will crying out softly, “Don’t stop,” for the pain and the thickness and depth, Hannibal pressing until he was seated, hot, heavy and eager; 

This was what Hannibal wanted all along, right from the beginning, equally dim motel room and Will in his underwear squinting at the unexpected stranger at his door, meetings in Hannibal’s office and the smoldering, simmering suggestion of this, with Will assuming it was nothing more than a cheeky flirtation until it started to mean too much for him. It started to fill his dreams, mixed amidst the violence, this wanton fucking and the expert angle and thrust of Hannibal, in and out, lips all over Will’s face, hands now pinning his hands to the sheets, Hannibal deeper and harder.

And Will finally got the tenderness out of Hannibal which he had killed himself for so many times, and it was more than worth it; it was everything he was and wanted. On other nights, when he had a full range of motion, he knew Hannibal would roll them over so Will could sit up and ride, he knew how Hannibal would watch him, breathless to his every move and the way he looked. To Hannibal, Will was a god, the golden prince who had taken over his kingdom to rule him forever, and Hannibal, Il Mostro, The Chesapeake Ripper, merely a man after all, would worship. He would offer fealty, abandon his pride as he did now, look up and love.

They were close to the edge now because Hannibal had found some way inside Will that pressed to a tense, then blossoming, swollen bulb of pure pleasure and he kept finding it over and over to make Will moan in ecstasy, it was enough to feel Hannibal inside him, big and rigid, molten hot pressing them as one, but this, too, to have this rhythmic build of --

“There,” Will said with staggering breath, tangling his fingers in Hannibal’s silky hair, tugging Hannibal’s ear with his aching teeth, “Hannibal, there,”

Again and again, Will’s cock trapped between them getting the friction of Hannibal’s sweat-slick body rubbing up and down, in and in until there was a sudden quickening in Hannibal, hip spasm and “ _Will_!”, cannibal heart thundering tight against Will’s heart, his, they were each other’s and each other. Hannibal paused after leaving a wet burst of seed in Will, another mark to cherish, dirty, profane and perfect, their godly sin; the world in ashes, flickering forgotten, Hannibal went back to fucking with a thick cry of happiness, and he hit the mark again so exquisitely that a shockwave of pleasure rolled over Will from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes, overflowing joy and passion, “ _Hannibal_ ,” 

They seemed to be repeating “I love you” to each other, procrastinating their bodily separation and allowing it only as a biological necessity created by some cruel, masquerading god of the mortal world, and as they tangled together afterwards, still dirty and sticky with each other and kissing, stroking, Hannibal said, “Run away with me,”

Because it wasn’t time for them in Florence now, not with all the pretenders and intruders scurrying around trying to take them away from each other. They would go somewhere else very much beautiful and theirs, kill anyone in their path who tried to stop them, bloody ashes and the flames they burned over each other, lovely light and bright.

“Yes,” Will smiled, rakish and naughty and Hannibal’s, his shoulder still hurt but it would heal as his rage had intertwined to love, too tight to untie, 

And they would find new ways to hurt one another, but only for their joined pleasure now, ever again, always.

“Yes, I love you,” countless kisses later still repeated, voices mingled, Hannibal repeating the phrase in exotic tongues to tantalize and please, Will sated with every repetition, hungry again a moment later for Hannibal, stroking and kissing and licking up over musk salt and sweat-streaked claimed skin, biting, “I love you my darling,”

And so they ran away, and those who attempted to bar their path were ruthlessly felled; together they were terrifying, and on far-away, balmy beaches and through pretty, fruit-flower fragrant open-air markets and all night long in posh hotel rooms and a special place of their own someday they kissed and loved and ruled.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the e.e. cummings poem, which is also referenced in the story, https://poets.org/poem/somewhere-i-have-never-travelledgladly-beyond
> 
> Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed! 🥰


End file.
